Cool 5 years of discovery: three possibilities of online music outbreaks

Cool Music founder One Thunder

Cool Music CEO Thunder said, online music has a chance to reach the game and video industry level, but because of the problem, the founder of the 8-year-old is very difficult to survive.

5 years of transformation and exploration

2005, the Thunder and Waich from Stanford Business School founded Cool Music. At that time, China Internet 2000 years of the first bubble has passed, the new entrepreneurial tide is rising: everyone is talking about the Web 2.0, the North Douban just set up, Chen, Wu Shichung created Cool News, classified information field suddenly gush out of the market, 58 with the city and the people ...

In short, the 2005 Chinese Internet Entrepreneurship is hot, a little more than 2011 years of mobile internet entrepreneurial tide feeling. Of course, this also means that the competition is unusually fierce. So, thunder and Waich of cool music selected general start-up companies will go path: The number of immersed users, the commercialization of the problem first put aside.

Until the subprime crisis broke out in 2008, cool investors and boards began to realise the need for commercialization. Cool music at that time almost no revenue, Thunder began the flow of the attempt to cash out.

The first move is advertising, the second is the game of combined transport. By these two strokes, 2010 cool music to achieve revenue balance. Although since then has been wandering around the profit and loss line, but the company is always a hematopoietic capacity and survived. After 2008, Cool did not have a financing.

Today, advertising and game transport have become the biggest source of revenue for cool. The Thunder did not disclose the revenue levels of the two, but confirmed that advertising and game transport in the overall revenue share of the equivalent.

"Actually, cool, almost all of the commercial attempts started in 2008." Thunder said. In addition to the advertising and game transport, Cool also early to try the charging value-added services, including high quality fees, speed guarantee and song starter. However, this pattern has not been successful until now. According to the data provided by the Thunder, the number of users in charge service after three or four years is only about 10,000--to know, cool music monthly active users close to 100 million.

In fact, China has tried to pay the value-added online music products are not a minority, which also to watercress FM, shrimp nets, such as the most representative. But domestic pay in the most successful when it is Tencent's QQ music, paid green drill users can enjoy high quality, download and other services, but also music can be set as the background music QQ space. Thunder believes that the success of the QQ music payment is the key to the combination of SNS. The pure music charge service depends on the domestic copyright environment, the product itself service and the user pays the habit and so on factor, therefore "in a very long time all is not tenable".

"Cool Entrepreneurship for 8 years, we feel more regret is that online music has the opportunity to grow into video, information, games, such as the industry, but because the current mode is not particularly good, even the best of the hard to survive." ”

Three possibilities

2002 left Baidu that year, Thunder is Baidu's chief architect. At that time, Baidu is still a small company around hundred people. 2003 years ago, Baidu did not find the core business model, until the "bid ranking" model emerged and ushered in a big income explosion. And the thunder of cool, is also trying to find to make the online music revenue outbreak of the business model-like the bidding rankings in Baidu.

Thunder, or cool, thinking about business models is already clear. After 5 years of exploration, they identified three possible directions: one for advertising, the other for fees, and three for peripheral services. The advertising model has been proven to be feasible but also has bottlenecks: too much advertising affects the user experience, and in essence the music embodies only media value in this mode. After all those years of service, the most imaginative service is left.

Online music has a wide range of service types, such as concerts, TV variety shows, star brokers. Domestic internet music companies have tried more or less in these areas.

Liu Xiaosong's A8 music industry is the original singer's packaging and promotion, the online music business part more through its holding company more than meters music. However, the A8 music model is close to the traditional record company's mode of operation, and from a performance point of view the operation is somewhat unsatisfactory. A8 Music 2012 of the first half of net income was 180 million, down 26%. Corporate equity holders lost 9.64 million of their profits, compared to 9.32 million in the same period in 2011.

Chen's K-song app, "Sing It", reacted quickly on the test water in the concert. Last December, "Sing It" put its popular singer Yang Yi into the music combination "plume" of the personal concert, from the line down to the line under the intention is very obvious. Cool music is the best known of last year and the "good voice of China" cooperation "cool true Voice" program. Then the big heat of the TV show, cool at least reaped the spread effect and influence beyond expectations.

"We are mainly based on the impact of the variety show, there is no deeper cooperation in commercial output." The Thunder concludes.

"Bottom-up" Change

Online music enterprises may not have the financial resources of television stations, record companies are strong, the control of the offline resource and the use of the two are certainly not skilled. So there seems to be little difficulty in taking the lead in a concert or variety show market to make a significant commercial profit. What internet companies are better at is "bottom-up" change based on online platforms. Whether it is cool or yy music, this path is gone.

Lee Colling yy Music is recognized as the industry's more successful model. YY Music for grassroots singers to provide online live room, through the sale of virtual goods profit. In the first half of 2012 yy music revenue reached 92.72 million yuan, accounting for 30% of total income.

Cool video Live Products "Cool show field" borrowed from the YY music part of the model, but the long-term direction is to rely on star brokers to make a lot of money. Star Brokerage part of YY music is also trying, the way is to set up a brokerage company, sign the platform on the high popularity of the host, organizing artists to participate in the offline performance.

"The star's top effect is too strong, which is related to media characteristics." Before the mass media capacity is limited, the Internet media to achieve a breakthrough in the way of the audience, each star can find their own audience. "Thunder believes that, with the help of the Internet platform, the star is the result of natural selection and elimination, no longer like the traditional way to spend a lot of financial resources to packaging." When the user always move to screen out the popularity of the star, the platform companies will recruit these stars to operate under the door, the time is ripe.

But just like cool night "sing" a few steps to launch the "Cool K song" app, video anchor field is already a contending. In addition to already listed yy, cool dog music, Sohu Video has also launched a beauty anchor platform. UGC (user-generated content) mode started the video website "Six Rooms", the basic transformation into a beautiful live, video chat site. The video interactive chat community 9158, low-key operation 8 years after the search for IPO opportunities.

"We started relatively late, and have not invested too much resources and energy, just start slowly." "While realizing that music is a great opportunity, thunder is always cautious and prudent when it comes to plans and prospects," he said.